stability and the microbial endurance, with implications for planetary protection and to determine if the Moon has been contaminated during past human missions.

Bittremieux, W., 2020. spectrum\_utils: A Python package for mass spectrometry data processing and visualization. Analytical Chemistry 92, 659-661.

https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.analchem.9b04884 Given the wide diversity in applications of biological mass spectrometry, custom data analyses are often needed to fully interpret the results of an experiment. Such bioinformatics scripts necessarily include similar basic functionality to read mass spectral data from standard file formats, process it, and visualize it. Rather than having to reimplement this functionality, to facilitate this task, spectrum\_utils is a Python package for mass spectrometry data processing and visualization. Its high-level functionality enables developers to quickly prototype ideas for computational mass spectrometry projects in only a few lines of code. Notably, the data processing functionality is highly optimized for computational efficiency to be able to deal with the large volumes of data that are generated during mass spectrometry experiments. The visualization functionality makes it possible to easily produce publication-quality figures as well as interactive spectrum plots for inclusion on web pages. spectrum\_utils is available for Python 3.6+, includes extensive online documentation and examples, and can be easily installed using conda. It is freely available as open source under the Apache 2.0 license at https://github.com/bittremieux/spectrum\_utils.

Bižić, M., Klintzsch, T., Ionescu, D., Hindiyeh, M.Y., Günthel, M., Muro -Pastor, A.M., Eckert, W., Urich, T., Keppler, F., Grossart, H.P., 2020. Aquatic and terrestrial cyanobacteria produce methane. Science Advances 6, eaax5343.

http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/3/eaax5343.abstract Evidence is accumulating to challenge the paradigm that biogenic methanogenesis, considered a strictly anaerobic process, is exclusive to archaea. We demonstrate that cyanobacteria living in marine, freshwater, and terrestrial environments produce methane at substantial rates under light, dark, oxic, and anoxic conditions, linking methane production with light-driven primary productivity in a globally relevant and ancient group of photoautotrophs. Methane production, attributed to cyanobacteria using stable isotope labeling techniques, was enhanced during oxygenic photosynthesis. We suggest that the formation of methane by cyanobacteria contributes to methane accumulation in oxygen-saturated marine and limnic surface waters. In these environments, frequent cyanobacterial blooms are predicted to further increase because of global warming potentially having a direct positive feedback on climate change. We conclude that this newly identified source contributes to the current natural methane budget and most likely has been producing methane since cyanobacteria first evolved on Earth.

Boll, M., Geiger, R., Junghare, M., Schink, B., 2020. Microbial degradation of phthalates: biochemistry and environmental implications. Environmental Microbiology Reports 12, 3-15.

https://doi.org/10.1111/1758-2229.12787 The environmentally relevant xenobiotic esters of phthalic acid (PA), isophthalic acid (IPA) and terephthalic acid (TPA) are produced on a million ton scale annually and are predominantly used as plastic polymers or plasticizers. Degradation by microorganisms is considered as the most effective means of their elimination from the environment and proceeds via hydrolysis to the corresponding PA isomers and alcohols under oxic and anoxic conditions. Further degradation of PA, IPA and TPA differs fundamentally between anaerobic and aerobic microorganisms. The latter introduce hydroxyl functionalities by dioxygenases to facilitate subsequent decarboxylation by either aromatizing dehydrogenases or cofactor-free decarboxylases. In contrast, anaerobic bacteria activate the PA isomers to the respective thioesters using CoA ligases or CoA transferases followed by decarboxylation to the central intermediate benzoyl-CoA. Decarboxylases acting on the three PA CoA thioesters belong to the UbiD enzyme family that harbour a prenylated flavin mononucleotide (FMN) cofactor